Home Office

Commencement of Safe Access Zones in England and Wales

Lord Sharpe of Epsom: My rt hon Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Cleverly) has today made the following Written Ministerial Statement:People in this country have a wide range of views on abortion. All viewpoints are legal to hold, and it is important that, as a nation, we are tolerant and respectful of others’ viewpoints. Indeed, it is a cornerstone of our democracy that people are free to gather and express their views, however uncomfortable they may be to others. The Government has always been clear that rights to protest do not extend to the intimidation or harassment of others. Where protests do amount to that, we expect the police and local authorities to use their powers to deal with such cases. The debates during the passage of the Public Order Act 2023 showed that many people have firmly held - but opposing - views about the merits of limiting the right to protest in order to enable women to freely access abortion services. There were concerns that the right to protest, freedom of expression and religious belief were being unjustifiably constrained. Meanwhile, others argued with equal passion that women accessing abortion services deserved greater protection from harassing or intimidatory protest. After considering the debates, the Houses of Parliament voted to introduce legislation to prohibit certain activities within 150 metres of an abortion clinic or a hospital that provides abortion services (“Safe Access Zones”). The Government respects the will of Parliament, and we anticipate commencing Section 9 of the Public Order Act 2023 no later than Spring 2024.[1] We have considered what needs to be done to ensure that Safe Access Zones can be implemented as effectively as possible, with law enforcement agencies having a clear and consistent understanding around enforcement, and abortion service providers and protestors being clear as to what is expected under the new law. We believe the best way to do this would be through publishing non-statutory guidance prior to the commencement of Section 9. I recognise that this is new legislation, on an emotive topic, with strong views on all sides of the debate and that determining the appropriate balance between competing interests will not always be straightforward. The Government has therefore decided to launch a public consultation on the non-statutory guidance for Safe Access Zones and welcomes responses from all interested parties. Running a public consultation will help ensure that we produce guidance that reflects the policy intention of Parliament and provides a workable enforcement policy. The public consultation will run for six weeks until 22 January 2024. A copy of the consultation will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on GOV.UK. As Home Secretary, I am committed to ensuring that women in England and Wales feel safe and protected whilst exercising their legal right to access abortion services and I am optimistic that this Government will facilitate the effective introduction of Safe Access Zones. I thank Members across this House for their engagement on this issue. [1] Abortion Clinics: Safe Access Zones - Hansard - UK Parliament

Ministry of Defence

Maritime Capability Coalition Launch

The Earl of Minto: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence (The Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement. I am pleased to inform the House of the UK’s launch of the Maritime Capability Coalition (MCC), alongside Norway, which represents a step change in the UK’s support for Ukraine in both defending against Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion and in developing Ukraine’s maritime capabilities for the future. The MCC will focus on the task of developing a Ukrainian maritime force capable of defending Ukraine’s maritime flank and deterring Russia. This will require our collective effort and resource, including through the provision of training, doctrine, information, infrastructure or the procurement of equipment and ammunition. The future security and prosperity of Ukraine depends upon it. The MCC initiative re-enforces our collective long-term commitment to Ukraine and provides a permanent mechanism through which we can support the development of Ukraine’s maritime capability, ensuring coherence, unity of effort, prioritisation of resource, and synchronisation of activity. The UK and our allies have been clear we will not stand by as the Kremlin persists in its disregard for the sovereignty of Ukraine and international law. This includes the recognition of Ukraine’s sovereignty over its Territorial Waters which is established in accordance with international maritime law. The MCC will be UK-led, alongside Norway but will be international in nature with other nations contributing to the programme.

Response to the Independent Review of UK Government Welfare Services for Veterans

The Earl of Minto: My right hon. Friend The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Minister for Defence People and Families (Dr Andrew Murrison) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.The following joint statement is released on behalf of the Rt Hon. Dr Andrew Murrison MP, Minister for Defence People and Families and Rt Hon. Johnny Mercer MP, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs.We are pleased to announce the completion and publication of the Government response to the Independent Review of UK Government Welfare Services for veterans.We informed the House on 2 March that we had commissioned a review into the role, scope and breadth of UK Government welfare provision for veterans, including by the Ministry of Defence under the Veterans UK banner. This is the first time these have been considered in the round since the launch of the Strategy for our Veterans and corresponding Veterans Strategy Action Plan, and the creation of the Office for Veterans’ Affairs. On 17 July, we announced in a written statement to the House that this review had been published.The Review made 35 strategic and operational recommendations. The most significant of these include redefining the scope, time and eligibility limitations of Government services so that they are no longer available to all veterans in perpetuity; amending Ministerial titles to better distinguish the roles of the MOD and OVA in veterans support; retiring the MOD’s "Veterans UK" branding; exploring greater commissioning of services within and out of Government; and moving the Northern Ireland Veterans’ Support Office into the OVA. These recommendations are supported by a series of proposals concerning improved and coordinated communications, and enhanced data collection and sharing.There are several recommendations in this review which we can confirm we are actively taking forward, which includes the retirement of the "Veterans UK" branding name in 2024, and the transformation of how we deliver the welfare services which fall under that umbrella. This will enable a more consistent level of service to those accessing support. "Veterans" will be removed from the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families title, to avoid confusion as to who holds primacy for coordinating veterans’ policy across Government. MOD will continue administering service pensions and compensation, transition support and welfare support for those with service-related issues. OVA is working to consider the options for improving Veterans Gateway content and the referral journey, exploring how a renewed Veterans' Gateway can direct users to the information and support they need. In addition, MOD and OVA will continue to work together to assess opportunities for data sharing more widely across government and other organisations across the sector. Tied into this work, MOD will examine the proposal for a new welfare case management system with the aim to create a holistic view of a welfare case and be able to share this more easily, where appropriate, with other service providers so that a veteran could be referred more effectively to relevant support across the sector. The Government recognises the views expressed in the review on the knowledge and trust held by the Northern Ireland Veterans Support Office (NIVSO). OVA will fund the NIVSO for FY 2024-25 from its budget, while evaluating its impact to determine future funding and governance arrangements. We know that veterans and supporting organisations want to see real change taken to enhance and rationalise welfare services for our Armed Forces Community, and that is what we intend to do in response to this Review. The response sets out several of our commitments and high-level plans to take forward the intention of the recommendations, and further detail will be made available as we make progress in due course.We are placing a copy of this Review response in the Library of the House. Veterans (pdf, 258.3KB)

Department for Business and Trade

Trade Sanctions Implementation Update

Lord Offord of Garvel: My Hon Friend the Minister of State for Department of Business and Trade (Nusrat Ghani MP) has today made the following statement.The Government is announcing today that it will create a new unit - the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation - within the Department for Business and Trade to improve the implementation and enforcement of trade sanctions. Over the last year, the Government has implemented sanctions against Russia unprecedented in scale and scope. In total, the UK has sanctioned over £20 billion worth of its 2021 trade in goods with Russia. We have also banned the provision of a range of professional and business services that are crucial to Russia’s economy, including accounting and audit, advertising and public relations, architectural services, engineering services, management and IT consulting, and legal advisory services. The UK is a world leader in services trade, and Russia has high levels of dependence on skills and expertise from G7 countries. Our services sanctions will degrade Russia’s ability to maintain, upgrade, and modernise its economy over the medium-term, thereby reducing the revenue available to finance its war machine. The new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation will play a pivotal role in ensuring that these sanctions, but also those across twenty-three other UK sanctions regimes such as Afghanistan, Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Lebanon and Syria, are effectively implemented and enforced. The new unit will support businesses to comply with UK trade sanctions as well as investigate potential breaches. The Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation will have a range of civil enforcement tools including the ability to levy monetary penalties. The Government will make regulations to provide the framework for these monetary penalties. Where the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation investigates and potentially finds more serious breaches, it will refer these to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or other agencies for criminal enforcement. The Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation will be an important addition to the Government’s sanctions enforcement capability. It will work closely with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which will continue to enforce trade sanctions where goods (and ancillary services) cross the border in line with its role as the UK’s Customs Authority; with The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation in His Majesty’s Treasury, which is responsible for financial sanctions as well as the oil price cap; with the Department for Transport, which leads on transport sanctions, and with the Home Office, which is responsible for immigration sanctions and for modern slavery. The creation of the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation is a key part of how government is delivering the Economic Deterrence Initiative announced as part of the refresh of the Government’s Integrated Review, published in March this year. This funding is from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, and administered by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which is responsible for overall foreign policy on the use of sanctions. It will strengthen our tools to respond to and deter hostile acts by current and future aggressors, including by building expertise across government to design, implement and enforce sanctions for maximum impact. Further detail on when the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation will be operational will be shared with Parliament at a later date.

Scotland Office

Outcome of the Judicial Review challenging the use of Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 with regard to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill

Lord Offord of Garvel: My Rt hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland (Alister Jack) has today made the following statement:I welcome the Court’s judgment, which upholds my decision to prevent the Scottish Government’s gender recognition legislation from becoming law. The Outer House of the Court of Session issued its judgment on the Scottish Government’s petition for judicial review on the section 35 Order made with respect to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill on 8 December. The Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament in December 2022 and in January 2023 I made an Order under section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998, which prevented the Bill from proceeding to Royal Assent. In April 2023 the Scottish Ministers lodged a petition for judicial review challenging this Order.The UK Government’s position in the judicial review was set out in our Answers to the Scottish Government’s Petition and in a Note of Argument, both of which have been published and I will place them in the libraries of both Houses. The hearing took place on 19-20 September in the Court of Session in Edinburgh.I was clear that this legislation would have had adverse effects on the operation of the law as it applies to reserved matters, including on important Great Britain-wide equality protections. My decision was about the legislation’s consequences for the operation of GB-wide equalities protections and other reserved matters. As I set out when I made the section 35 Order, transgender people deserve our respect, support and understanding.The section 35 power was included in the Scotland Act 1998, which established the Scottish Parliament. The power in section 35 of the Scotland Act is not new - it has existed as long as devolution itself. As Lady Haldane noted: “far from being an impermissible intrusion upon the constitutional settlement, section 35 is an intrinsic part of it.”The section 35 power provides a sensible measure which can be used to ensure that devolved legislation does not have adverse impacts on reserved matters, including on equalities legislation such as the Equality Act 2010.The power can only be exercised on specific grounds - and the fact that this is the first time it has been necessary to exercise the power in almost twenty-five years of devolution emphasises that it is not a power to be used lightly.In the instance of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, I concluded that the Bill would have serious, adverse effects on the operation of the Equality Act 2010 and other reserved manners. It is for the Scottish Government to consider the next steps for the Bill with the Scottish Parliament.I will place a copy of the judgment in the libraries of both Houses, and the full text of the judgment can be found here: https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/search-judgments/court-of-session